One of the many uphill battles we face in promoting liveable cities is the belief that transport modes such as walking and cycling are not 'serious' or important. Many transport planners fail to give attention to short trips and to non-motorized modes. In transport counts, walking and cycling are often ignored; they may be considered at most a form of recreation, not transport. But just as walking is a vital mode for the many short trips and trip segments most people take each day, so cycling is a highly efficient mode for short as well as longer trips, both in terms of calories and fuel expended, and time and space needed. Walking requires no space for parking, cycling little. In typical congested cities, they can be faster than movement by bus or car. So why are they so consistently ignored and how can we overcome the neglect? The lobbies for cars, oil, and road-building are ever-present and influential. We can't ouspend them, but we can try harder to keep raising the importance of fuel-free modes of travel and to keep demanding that less be spent on infrastructure for the car and more for walking, cycling, and public transit. We can demand that the maximum speed in cities be kept below 30 km/hour, so that traffic crashes won't mean serous injury and death, and so that people can be more easily enticed out of their cars and into more urban-friendly modes. Patience, persistence, and perseverance are needed. The success of some cities shows it's possible to encourage walking and cycling and discourage car use; the disastrous situation of many others shows how badly the change is needed. We may not always succeed, but as my motto goes, if we don't try we will certainly fail.